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Driverless cars shuttle Heathrow passengers

Autonomous cars aren't the future--they're already here and in use in London. Heathrow Airport swapped 2 diesel buses for 22 electric pods that shuttle passengers from Terminal 5 to the parking lot without the help of a driver.

Each electric pod can carry up to four passengers and their luggage. At the terminal, passengers request a pod and enter their destination.

Once in the pod, passengers don't have to worry about traffic or the pod's ability to navigate around cars because they travel on designated roadways. It takes the pods about five to six minutes to travel approximately 1.2 miles to the T5 Business Car Park.

The autonomous vehicles, made by Ultra PRT, have yet to be in an accident, according to an article in the New York Times. They operate at a top speed of around 25 mph, and can handle light snow. Because the electric vehicles operate only when needed, they're more energy efficient than the pair of diesel buses that formerly looped the airport, stopping at every drop-off point regardless of the passenger load.

But the best part of the service is that there's no driver to tip. … Read more

EA: Battlefield 3 preorders outdo franchise's last title

The wildly anticipated Battlefield 3 has been catching on with gamers.

According to the game's publisher, Electronic Arts, preorders for the title are more than 10 times higher than they were for Battlefield: Bad Company 2, the last title the company released in the franchise. It's an impressive feat. Last month, EA announced that it had sold 9 million copies of Bad Company 2 since the game's launch in March 2010.

Battlefield 3 is being called by some industry observers a possible Call of Duty killer. The game, which is scheduled to launch on October 25, is a first-person shooter that puts the gamer in the shoes of U.S. Marines. Gamers must work their way through several missions spanning Paris, Tehran, and New York City. Battlefield 3 promises gameplay that's quite similar to real-world battles--a hallmark of Activision's Call of Duty franchise.… Read more

Personal Audio's second suit against Apple denied

Personal Audio, the company that was awarded $8 million in damages from Apple in patent infringement ruling last month, has had its attempt at additional damages denied by a U.S. District judge.

In a judgment filed over the weekend, and picked up by the Courthouse News Service today, U.S. District Judge Ron Clark said there will not be a second trial to cover patent infringement issues with the iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad since the previous case judgment covered both past and future use of Personal Audio's technology.

"In light of the history of this case, … Read more

Keylogger kryptonite

Keyloggers are sneaky little programs that can record everything you type, including usernames, passwords, credit card numbers, and other sensitive information. Although antivirus software is often able to detect and eliminate such programs once you're infected, they're not foolproof. KeyScrambler Personal promises to encrypt your keystrokes at the level of your keyboard driver and decrypt them when they reach your browser so they're visible to you. Sounds good in theory, but does it work? We can't guarantee that it's perfect, but we can say that it worked just fine when we tried it.

Obviously, if … Read more

Bare-bones payroll

Even if you use a payroll company to pay your employees, in many cases you're still legally obligated to keep your own payroll records. We've encountered several programs that let users do that with varying levels of success. Personal Payroll Manager, we're sorry to say, is among the worst. While it technically does keep track of your payroll records, it's difficult to use and lacks important features.

We had trouble getting Personal Payroll Manager to open at first; it requires Microsoft Access, and when we tried to launch Personal Payroll Manager, we had to manually select … Read more

Portable personal finance freeware

USB money...now that's what we call a peripheral! While USBMoney is free software, not free money, using this personal finance manager might make you think you're finding free money if it helps you keep more of what you earn. USBMoney is a portable personal finance manager that is designed to keep all your financial details in one place, such as a USB drive, memory chip, or other devices or media. Since it's completely portable, it can run on any Windows machine. It imports and exports data as CSV/QIF files, so it's completely compatible with … Read more

Sony Walkman A series images, specs leaked

A major U.K. retailer has exposed pictures and previously unannounced details of Sony's next-generation Walkman.

Play.com set up a placeholder for the upcoming NWZ-A860 series, revealing a device that appears to differ greatly in design than its predecessors. This Walkman looks wider and curvier, and the circular button arrangement of yesteryear is replaced by a single half-moon-shaped Home button.

Related link Sony prepping for Walkman refresh

A large bezel surrounds the 3.4-inch OLED touch screen, as confirmed by a CNET source familiar with the device who asked not to be named. … Read more

Mint tweaks its personal-finance iPhone app

Mint, which makes a personal-finance app, is taking full advantage of the iPhone's geolocation features in an update to the application.

As soon as users spend some cash, they can open up their Mint app and input the amount spent. The app's geolocation feature finds all the merchants nearby to help users assign the expense to the respective establishment. As soon as the expenditure is logged, Mint automatically updates users' bank balances.

Though the addition is somewhat minor, Mint says it has been one of its users' top requests. That makes some sense. After a payment is made, … Read more

Apple playlist patent suit winner hits replay for repay

Personal Audio, the company that was awarded $8 million in damages from Apple in patent infringement ruling earlier this month, has come back with a new lawsuit taking aim at additional Apple products it says infringe on the same intellectual property.

In a suit filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, picked up by patent tracking blog FOSS Patents, Personal Audio alleges that Apple's sixth-generation iPod Nano, fourth-generation iPod Shuffle, fourth-generation iPod Touch, iPhone 4, and iPad 2 all infringe on the company's patented audio technology. Personal Audio is seeking additional … Read more

More info on Battlelog, the Facebook of Battlefield 3

Hungry for more details about Battlefield 3? DICE revealed a few details about Battlelog, an upcoming free social-networking site that will roll out in conjunction with BF3 on October 25.

While there's no shortage of statistical sites for Battlefield games, the Battlelog service aims to be different with an infusion of social features. In an official blog update posted today, DICE describes Battlelog as a service where "players will be able to build a network of friends, communicate with other gamers, and compare their Battlefield stats with friends and foes alike."

The main area of Battlelog will be Battlefeed and it will be similar to a Facebook feed. It's a real-time area that displays your friends' activities, such as ranking up, unlocking guns, or awards achieved. For example, instead of pressing "Like," you would press "Hooah!" under a status update. Comments can be left on any action posted in the feed. DICE also mentions in the blog post that the service will offer a detailed stat-tracking system that features a "soldier progression section, bringing full stats tracking for every shot fired and every action performed in your Battlefield career."… Read more